


Standing here at the end

by goblinpassword



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Centauri Death Dreams, Character Study, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Past Relationship(s), Worldbuilding About Gay Relationships in Centauri Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27202987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblinpassword/pseuds/goblinpassword
Summary: Urza Jaddo will die in the arms of another man, bleeding out from a wound in his stomach. He thinks he is so old in it, when he first has the dream. He is only a child, and he doesn't know what old is.
Relationships: Marilya Jaddo & Urza Jaddo, Urza Jaddo/Londo Mollari
Kudos: 8





	Standing here at the end

Urza Jaddo will die in the arms of another man, bleeding out from a wound in his stomach. He thinks he is so old in it, when he first has the dream. He is only a child, and he doesn't know what old is.

***

Urza and Londo are introduced as children, appropriate playmates due to the alliance between their families, and they take to each other well. There are only so many boys of their age among the noble houses and fewer still with the right politics, and it is a lucky thing they are happy to be close. They have few other options.

They play together, explore sprawling countryside estates, sit together reluctantly through lessons and nagging mothers. They share all the petty upsets and grand celebrations of childhood. They reach their Day of Ascension months apart, and Urza may hold it over Londo's head just a little, those few months he is an adult and Londo is a child. It is too easy and fun to rile Londo up about such things, but he never stays mad at Urza for long.

They grow up together. They grow to be similar in height, but Urza is leaner where Londo is broad, toned where Londo is already showing signs of his father's stomach, and Urza thinks the contrast makes them a striking pair.

They enter the Couro Prido together, fight together, receive their names together: Paso Leati, because Londo fights like one, wild and vicious and leaving himself open as often as not, and Skal Tura, because Urza has the subtlety Londo lacks. They must be a joy to watch duel, Urza thinks, so different but well matched, even if Urza is the constant winner.

All of it - it pleases Urza very much. It has always pleased him to be near Londo, but that feeling has taken on different tones over the years. Urza finds his eyes lingering after they spar, when Londo has stripped to just his shirt, as undressed as it is truly decent to be. He dreams of black hair and blue eyes, and some nights those dreams are confusingly muddled, dark hair and being held back against a soft body, and pain. He does not know what to make of the dreams like that, which are not clearly one thing or another, and because he is young, he dismisses them.

And something of Urza must please Londo too.

It is not uncommon for two young, unmarried Centauri men to take each other for lovers. It's a pursuit of youth, a place to put impulses that could otherwise lead to disgracing some young woman (a scandal, though greater for the girl) or even the existence of a bastard from the lower classes (a stain to a man's reputation, but a survivable one).

It doesn't always work so well for that, as proven by Londo's shortlived first marriage, which Urza found funny, once Londo had sobered up.

It's practice while they wait for wives. They learn about being with another person, in soothing the disagreements and fights that spring up between any two people, and then they take that to their marriage beds and leave behind the rest of it. The very best relationships like that are not entirely left behind in youth, but change in adulthood into family alliances and business partnerships.

Urza suspects some of the relationships don't end as everyone says they do. He has a pair of acquaintances he wonders about in particular, though he has seen nothing to prove it and would never ask. It is between them and, he supposes, their wives.

But he and Londo - they entertain each other in their youth, falling together flushed from brivari or a duel or both, and eventually they part and do not come back together. Londo is unhappily married to Timov, in hopes that a strong personality may rein in his wilder elements, and Urza marries Marilya.

Marilya is wonderful. He thinks her at first a simply nice woman, the kind who seem to have scarcely any personality at all, but a month into their marriage, she makes a scathing joke at the breakfast table, wrapped up and nearly hidden in niceities, and Urza finds himself laughing in shock and delight. She has a wit in her sharper than any coutari, and she is so subtle with it, Urza thinks he will never catch all of what she means.

She is pretty enough, though not the type that's currently fashionable at court, but that stirs no great passion in him. Luckily, he stirs no great passion in her, so they are matched. Once they have determined that and discussed the need for an heir (Urza has hopes for a nephew through one of his sisters he can adopt into the Jaddo family), they are able to settle into a comfortable life together.

They become friends quickly, which is all Urza can ask, and it is not until later, after his service in the military, after Gorash, that he watches her pouring a glass of brivari in his study and realizes he loves her.

He's so startled by the realization that he blurts it out, and she only looks at him with a demure smile and a glint in her eyes that says she already knew.

***

Urza joins the military, because it is something for a son to do while he waits for his father to die so he may inherit. It is honorable, and there's glory to be won, and he has never thought about how war is waged.

He thinks about little else, when he returns home to Marilya. They sit together in his study, in the gardens, in the smaller dining room they reserve for private meals, and pick at his thoughts together. With a little time, she always finds the words to slice through the knots he has tied himself in. It's not quick work. It's never easy to let go of an idealized view of the galaxy, of your people.

He leverages his reputation as the hero of the Battle of Gorash to some success in politics, and he makes himself a bother in the Populum. The Populum holds no real power compared to the Centaurum, but voices raised loudly enough, for long enough, draw attention.

He does not want more war. He does not want more generations of Centauri seeing the things he has seen. He does not want to strengthen the empire by sending young men to die.

It is fine for a time. For many years, in fact, Urza is ignored by politics at large. He manages to push a few small issues with the weight of his military history, and it makes nearly no difference.

It is not a busy life, being a Vocator, and he spends most of his time on his own estates. His father dies, and he dutifully takes over managing family business interests, to ensure the comfort of whatever heir he may find, with Marilya looking over his shoulder giving occasional, fiercely clever advice. What they lack in political success, they make up for in financial.

He takes care of his house. No Jaddo suffers improverished under Urza's care, as long as they can bend their pride enough to admit their need for help. He helps broker marriage deals for cousins that will see them as happy at least, he hopes, as he and Marilya. He finds jobs for others, directs young men away from the military where he can.

It all passes so quickly. He doesn't feel old, when his politics begin to catch up with him.

***

It is reuniting on Babylon 5 and seeing Londo's face that lets Urza know the shape of what is to come.

He hasn't seen Londo in person in years, but he has seen occasional photos and videos in press releases and informational docets during his work in the Populum. Londo's face has been especially frequent in the few months since Emperor Turhan's death. Urza had smiled to himself about how much Londo has grown to resemble his father, wondered if he is as horrified by how his hairline has receded as he would've been in their youth.

It is a different thing to see Londo in person and recognize him not only as an old friend, but as the man from his dream. It is a different thing, the picture and the man. He feels the phantom of the dream's pain, and he does not show it any more than he shows his displeasure when Londo introduces him as the hero of the Battle of Gorash.

Urza and Marilya had discussed many plans and possibilities, all dependent on Londo's response, but Urza feels his future narrowing down to one path.

It is nice, to be near Londo after all these years, even with the walls those years have built between them. He isn't lying, to say his heart leaps. It is easy to be nostalgic for the past when he is sitting in Londo's quarters, drinking Londo's brivari, even with what he suspects is to come.

He does not want to die, but neither does he want to betray a lifetime's work. He knew Londo was a loyalist, a good republican in the ways Urza is not, but he swears by all their many gods, he did not know Londo would stoop to working with Refa. He knew Londo would support the war with the Narn, suspected Londo might not care about the assassination of Minister Malachi, but he did not think Londo had made himself complicit.

And Londo wants to speak of destiny! Golden ages and glory and empires built on suffering and war and nightmares like Gorash. Urza does not know what he would have done, had Londo accepted the gift of his coutari.

His anger is not an act when he calls for the Morago. It is freeing, in a way, to give in to the dream and die with his principles intact.

He doesn't feel old.

What he thinks of sometime in the two hours before: they told each other their dreams once, tangled together somewhere near sleep. Londo had been drunker then than Urza, and now, Urza does not know if Londo remembers. He finds he does not care. It would not make it better, for Londo to have remembered or forgotten. All it will do is change how Londo feels, and Urza cannot care what Londo feels, not about this.

What he thinks of at the last: Marilya and cousins and widowed aunts and children too young to protect themselves and always Marilya.

***

(In another world, where Urza had held more tightly to Londo, where they didn't grow apart with duties and ideals and wives, it would have ended differently. Urza would not have called for the Morago, Londo would not have run Urza through, and Urza's blood would not be so literally on Londo's hands. The dream would only be a metaphor. Londo would find others ways to bring Urza to ruin without ever intending it, and Londo would always bear some responsibility for his death.)

***

Marilya, now technically Mollari, oversees much of the Jaddos' movement between houses. She would have no real power as a widow, even had her husband not been posthumously declared a traitor to the Republic, even if she were not now a member of House Mollari, but these people have spent decades watching the way her Urza looked to her in all things.

They respect her because he respected her, no matter that she's a woman.

House Mollari rises ever higher, and the refugees of House Jaddo are made comfortable. Marilya smooths over the discomforts that do arise, and she is not so lonely as she feared.

Londo Mollari never speaks to her. She does not know if he feels shame for her husband's death, and she finds she does not care. Londo Mollari is, gladly, not her problem. Her husband is marked a traitor and she a Mollari, and she does not care what Londo might feel.

He sends word just once, when he is Emperor Mollari II and Centauri Prime is near ruin, to explain that her Urza's niece and nephew, sweet Lyssa and Luc, who might have been his heir, are being sheltered in the Royal Palace. He offers Marilya the same safety, which she knows he has denied even his own wife.

She sends back, as formally and distantly as befits a widowed member of his house, her refusal.

Marilya lives to see the time of Emperor Cotto, to see Lyssa and Luc both married to deserving spouses, to see Londo Mollari immortalized in gold in the capitol. She dies peacefully in a Mollari estate owned technically by some cousin of the late emperor but entrusted to the care of Marilya Jaddo until her passing.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from the song "Patriot" by Beth Kinderman, which is my absolute favorite piece of filk about B5.


End file.
